our little propagating nursery ....

so ... feeling the drive to get some tree's ready to plant has really been on my mind.  with the exchange on our house in sydney this week, and settlement early january .... it means that we need to be working hard to have some tree's ready to be planted out when we find JustEarth here in the heart of Northern NSW.  but gee-willy-wonkers!  the sun can really get to the young tree's up here!  so striking and then just setting out in a pot won't do it here, they need heaps of tlc ... love and tender care .... they need a nursery!

so enter one amazing husband who is about as ingenious as it gets ....

we had an old greenhouse that we brought with us in them move, thinking that somehow, someway .... ONE DAY it might get reused ..... so hubby cracks it out and puts it together.  we put shade cloth over it, but not before installing a  gentle drip line so that i can turn the tap on and let those tender young trees get soaked.

pretty great, huh?  all up it cost us around $50.  and when you think that the goal is propagate well over 100 trees, the cost savings to provide some tlc as these babies harden up is immense!   there is excess run off from the water right now and the misting system is a bit "generous" and sprays around the outside edges of the nursery as well.  but the cool thing is, once we are passed the heat of the summer, with those plants that are bigger, i can put them outside the nursery to harden up a bit and they'll get the extra misting from the system!

right now we have 3 acacia's, 3 mango's, a native macadamia and a fig.  i went a bit berzerk at Daley's Nursery ... they are the best sub tropical and natives nursery around, and they are 20 minutes away!  all of these i got for a total of about $49.  wow!  i just had to spoil myself!

however, the reality is that most of my propagating will occur from cuttings that i get from neighbors and friends.  i have access to coffee, mulberry, willow, a variety of citrus, olive .... so many things.  the more i can do via "freebies" the better off i am.  not just cost wise .... but if i am sourcing local cuttings ... it means that the tree's are local and have been hardened to this environment and as such, stand a better chance of surviving.

so i expect that most future additions to plant nursery will be much smaller and will take some time to grow.  but that's ok!  it's all about planning and doing now, so that when we are ready to move ... one of the first things we can do is get heaps of tree's into the ground!

Treasure Hunting

today was adventure day. we had a goal of getting a few things for the garden .... and seeing how cheaply we could source it all.  even the kids thought it would be a grand day out!

we're ready!  let's go!

i should rewind.... our goal was to get chook poo and hay for the yard.  we need to build a few more beds, move a few things and get them all bedded down the no dig way with lasagna layers of poo, dirt, straw ... you get the picture!  the adventure part was doing it cheaply (e.g., NOT from the local produce or hardware store!), and having no idea where we were going!

the first strike was pretty easy.  we got our chook poo!  thank you very much!  8 bags for $20 .... ain't complaining there (well, actually i did a little later when we saw some for $2 a bag rather than $2.50 .... but it was still immensly cheaper than the hardware store!)

yo mum!  this stuff stinks!  hahahaha!

and then next!  well ..... truth be told, we got lost .... a bit!  kids had a bit of a nap ... we drove some more ... retraced our steps .... but we did find hay and even got our hands on some mushroom compost!

our haul!  not bad!

all in all, we paid just over $60 for all of this.  and wow .... look what we have now .....

our newest bed!  note that we have started putting
old junk in the yard ... our effort to make it just
a bit more eclectic!

tada!  our newest bed.  and i have a bale of hay left ..... 6 bags of chook poo and 4 bags of mushroom compost still to get through.  it felt really good sourcing stuff cheaply.  it didn't have to look good, or be packaged in the "approved" way .... it was just what it was.  and it worked!  ( i mean lets face it ... why put a pretty face on chook poo!) give this bed a few weeks to settle in .... my onions will be ready to plant out by then and voila!  i have my onion / leek and garlic bed!  yeah!

oh .... and i have to boast.  i was wandering through the beds today and found the following asparagus spear shooting up!  it was one of the first things we planted (actually transplanted this one) .... and i am so happy to see it bedding in .... and now i'm really ready for spring to hit!  bring it on!

p.s.  my egg quantities have doubled as well .... come on!  i want to do my spring happy dance!

o u lovely tomato!

ok ... so it's time to start thinking about the spring planting .... and i'm determined to get it right -- especially with tomato's .... because they have so much to offer!  it was important to have a really clear idea for what i wanted to grow.  here were my criteria.

• being able to harvest fruit for as long as possible!  so i had to choose different varieties for different seasons
• fruit that was full of flavour and versatile.  need to be able to use it for salads and passatta and sauce.
• size matters as well as i  can't have all small or all staked.  so i have chosen a mixture of small and tall, bush and vine.  only a few require serious staking.... but knowing me, i'll end up staking them all anyway, just because it helps.
• and fun, colourful stuff.  so i chose one that even fruits a light pink, and another that has red and yellow stripes!  different shapes too ... from small cherry, to large flat and squishy. 

so, here is my plan of attack.

i've also ordered one that i haven't listed simply because it's too funny and i'm not quite sure where to put it .... it's called Mr Ugly ... can you believe it!  supposed to grow huge vines with huge fruit that is really tasty.

All fruit ordered through Garden World, Eden Seeds and Diggers.


Resource:
http://www.greenfingers.com.au/services/digging_deeper/tomatoes_want_to_grow/4.htm#Tomato
http://www.sgaonline.org.au/?p=73
http://www.tomato.com.au/index.html
http://www.mr-ugly.com/index.html

The Great Budget War

how do you shop?  do you go when you are hungry?  do you have all the kids in tow?  do you end up cringing when they read your price at check out?  <sigh>  it's not a nice feeling is it?  given up on budgets because they always get blown?  even on basics?

when we brought our first child home from the Philippines and made the great conversion to me being a stay at home mum ... i knew things would have to change.  i might not be bringing in an income anymore .... but i was going to have to find ways to save money ... i had my part to play!

ALDI and i have become best friends.  as soon as i realised that, for the most part, i could buy exactly the same thing (just branded slightly differently) and 60-70% of the cost .... i swallowed my pride and became ok with being my own "check out chick".  i hear you saying "but i can't get everything i need at ALDI" .... so?  you can get 80% of it, that's for sure!  and yes, they have organic food items .... from free range eggs (although we have our own chooks .... another HUGE budget saver) to organic chickens.  they have a whole range of "organics" .... not quite as cheap as the others .... but still heaps cheaper than at one of the two "big chains". 

the other thing i do is belong to a local fruit and veggie co-op.  if you don't belong ... you need to.  if you can't find one ... then start one!  they aren't hard and you can get some good deals.  we drop $40 a fortnight and get 1-2 over stuffed boxes of fruit and veggie.  when it was just the three of us we would always have more than we need.  now with there being 5 of us we go through it and i generally have to hit the fruit market as well .... but that's ok .... because we are still getting a great deal.

other things we do include:

• not being afraid to accept second hand clothes (our kids barely know new!)
• re-use and recycle -- you'd be amazed at what can have a second use in your home
• understand the difference between wanting and needing something (need i say more?)
• buy on ebay or online .... but COST COMPARE!  sometimes the cost of the postage and handling more than kills any deals you might get on the sticker price
• growing our own, of course that's obvious.  the more i can grow myself the less we have to buy.
• find a barter network and use it.  what do you have that others want that you could use to barter with?

those are just a few things.  i wish i could say that we are living high on the hog.  but we do just fine.  and the more we can produce ourselves the less reliant we will be on having to purchase items.  there will always be a need to buy things .... we can't get around that.  but in the end answering the question about if something is a want or a need will go a very long way in helping us to realise just how much we can live without.